New voting machines will be in place for Cole County voters when the March 15 presidential preference primary takes place.
Friday morning, Cole County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer and his staff unloaded 29 new optical scan machines and 29 ADA ballot machines for testing.
The machines replace 43 scanners that had been in service since 2005 and 39 ADA machines that had been in service since 2006.
Korsmeyer said they have reduced the number of polling places from 35 to 28, so not as many machines were needed.
Each optical scanner cost $4,790, and each ADA machine cost $3,150.
With other hardware costs, the total price was $239,690. But thanks to grants from the federal government and the state, the final bill came to $90,854, which came out of the county's general fund.
Korsmeyer said testing and training of poll workers will take place in the next few weeks.
"These machines shouldn't require as much maintenance as the old ones," he said. "Voters shouldn't notice a difference.
They will still fill out their ballots and run through the machines like we have in past elections."
A total of 26 candidates is on the March 15 ballot - nine Democrats, 12 Republicans and five Libertarians.